The book glosses over all the moral complexity that, these days, books for children about animals in captivity usually embrace

Bear extraordinaire

On the Trail of Genghis Khan argues that the Mongol Empire was not tyrannical as the European historians depicted in the 18th century, when the Europeans constructed their idea of the Orient. On the contrary, the author thinks the Empire was tolerant, decentralised and very well administered

In Steppe with Genghis

Business Standard

The murder of Avijit Roy, whom The Guardian described as a "prominent American blogger of Bangladeshi origin ...  founder of the Mukto-Mona (Free Mind) blog site - which champions liberal secular writing", last week is yet more evidence of how dialectical voices are under threat from fundamentalist forces all over the world. But the subcontinent is under particular threat. The site of the murder is the historic Teacher-Student Centre of Dhaka University, host to a number of important meetings during the liberation movement of 1971. Besides calling into question the security provisions on campus, the incident also highlights how universities as sanctuaries of dissent and debate are on the retreat in the region.A history of another leading education institution of the subcontinent - Jawaharhal Nehru University (JNU) - is perhaps a timely reminder of the lofty ideals that once governed institutions in neighbouring nations. JNU: The Making of a University by Rakesh Batabyal, a former stude

JNU in minutiae

The Islamic State of Iraq and (Greater) Syria, known across the world by its iconic abbreviation, Isis, thrust itself into global consciousness with the dramatic capture of the city of Mosul in June 2014, defeating an army of several thousand personnel, who fled in disarray, abandoning their weapons, uniforms, treasury and, above all, their responsibility to protect the civilian population of over a million. From Mosul, Isis forces swept across northern and western Iraq and then penetrated Syria, extinguishing the 90-year-old international border and capturing large parts of Syrian territory along the border with Turkey. The Kurds were challenged with the capture of Sinjar, after which their capital Arbil was threatened, while the much-vaunted peshmerga scurried to defend their homeland.At the end of June another dramatic development occurred: the leader of Isis emerged from the shadows to announce his name, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, his familial link with Prophet Mohammed, and that he was

Isis: anatomy of a new scourge in West Asia

This book could be read - idiosyncratically, since this is not the author's thesis - as an argument for not straying too far from home

Chhattisgarh mon amour

Mohsin Hamid's Pakistan is much more than what he wryly calls it, a 'villain in the horror sub-industry within the news business'

The divided man

For cancer to develop, the p53 gene has to malfunction or its activity has to be suppressed. Till 1989, the gene was supposed to be the cause of the disease

A cold, hard look at the metaphor for death

JNU: The Making of A University by Rakesh Batabyal was launched at Press Club of India, on Saturday.Batabyal, the history of media teacher at the Centre for Media Studies, is the author of books such as Communalism in Bengal: From Famine to Noakhali (1943-47) and The Penguin Book of Modern Indian Speeches. His latest book, published by HarperCollins, traces the history of the central university (where Batabyal was also once a student) from its inception in 1964 to 1989."The reason for writing this book was very specific," said Batabyal at the launch. "I wanted to find out why so many people want to be associated with the university and why an equal number are derisive about it."A visit of delegates from Yale University, who could not stop waxing eloquent about JNU's academic standards, a few years ago prompted Batabyal to study his alma mater's attractions. At the same time, he found himself defending the university from barbs of colleagues at the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Sh

Book on history of JNU launched

In the 2010 film Social Network - a drama on the founding of Facebook - Harvard University President Larry Summers tells the Winklevoss twins, who accused Mark Zuckerberg of stealing the idea of the popular start-up from them, that "Harvard undergraduates believe that inventing a job is better than finding a job." Indians seems to have taken this idea to heart in recent times, venturing into the promising pastures of Start-up Land, with its unchallenged capital at Bengaluru.In Start-up City, the authors track 10 success stories from the capital of Karnataka. In the Preface, they claim: "This book is... an ode to this new romantic notion of entrepreneurship, as also to the software industry... It is also a paean to Bangalore..." True to their word, they wax eloquent about the entrepreneurial ventures that have struck gold. But those looking for a parallel history of the city will be disappointed.Contemporary urban histories of India are ubiquitous, with historian Gyan Prakash's Mumbai F

Odes to entrepreneurship

Describing the rising water of the Thames and London sinking a foot a century, Diane Ackerman comments: 'It needs not so much Knights Templar as Knights Temperature'

Sunny side up, the fury of Gaia

The home page of the website for Make in India - the principle project of the newly elected National Democratic Alliance government to attract foreign investment - displays its logo: the silhouette of a lion, with mechanical wheels within it. An introductory text asserts: "There's never been a better time to make in India." During its election campaign, the Bharatiya Janata Party had promised to open the floodgates for foreign investors. Make in India is an effort to make good the promise, and the initial response from the global community has been positive.The heady euphoria should, however, be tempered with a look at the country's not-so-fortunate history with foreign investment. And nothing could serve as a more sobering reminder than the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal gas leak.On the night of December 2 and early morning of December 3, 1984, the leak of the fatal methyl isocyanate from Union Carbide's factory in Bhopal claimed more than 5,000 lives. According to experts, more than

Lessons from a cold night of death

Turkish ambassador to India Burak Akçapar's book People's Mission to the Ottoman Empire opens: "It was an era where sides had to be taken and lines were drawn in people's minds." He might as well have been talking of our troubled times.Merely a few hours after the attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo, the Jacobin made a point that would find wide circulation in the following days: killing journalists is heinous but the Parisian publication was racist. Hook-nosed caricatures of Arab jihadists have been ubiquitous in the pages Charlie Hebdo, as have been irreverent depictions of Jews and Christians. However, the weekly's depiction of Muslims and the Prophet has earned it the most criticism and violent attacks, including a fire-bombing of its offices in 2006.Mr Akçapar's book addresses some of the central issues of this debate, albeit through the lens of an almost forgotten chapter of India's engagement with pan-Islamism.Oxford Islamic Studies defines pan-Islamism on its website as "i

An Indian tryst with pan-Islamism

Across much of the world, populations suffer daily shakedowns by the police. At roadblocks, market stalls and entrances to government buildings, thugs in uniform gather "like spear fishermen hunting trout in a narrows", as Sarah Chayes writes. But that isn't the half of it. Globally, the three most important desiderata of our age - security, resilience and poverty reduction - are consistently being hollowed out by structural theft on a much larger scale, operating across corporations, governments, military establishments and civil services.One key reason the United States and its allies have struggled to establish sustainable democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq is that the governments of those countries are mired in graft, caught in a mafia-like system in which money flows upward. The same goes for parts of Africa and Asia, and most of the former Soviet Union.Ms Chayes's Thieves of State makes a strong case that acute corruption causes not only social breakdown but also violent extremi

Kleptocracy and extremism

A new biography asks the question but struggles for an answer

Mahendra Singh Dhoni: Is Captain Cool for real?

Much of history, when seen in retrospect, can take on an air of inevitability. Most susceptible to this illusion, in a way, are elections, especially wave elections. Once the results are in, and the extent of the wave is known, then it becomes as if we always knew - for we were walking through the very country that delivered the landslide, so surely we must have known.Something of that is at work already in discussions of the 2014 election. It is as if Narendra Modi's unprecedented majority in the Lok Sabha, his sweep of the north, was obvious to all even as it was happening. Books are being written in which this is the subtext. Harish Khare's How Modi Won It, therefore, is a doubly useful book: for it reminds us that while the 2014 election may not have been a close-run thing in the end, nevertheless few knew how it would turn out while it was happening. It sets out, in fact, to do precisely that. "We owe it to history," it begins, "to put winners and losers in the context of the day

What Harish Khare heard

Mihir Sharma is well-known to readers of Business Standard. His articles are incisive, sharp, hard-hitting and have a good measure of sarcasm. In his book Restart, we see one more aspect: impatience. Mr Sharma is in a hurry to cut the fluff and get to the point; to give a list of policy measures gone wrong from time immemorial and initiatives to fix them. He understands that the answers are not simple, that there are multiple pressures on policymaking and vested interests about which he writes extensively in the book. But he still believes that the way to go is to take the route of rapid and drastic reform. Reform that does not exploit the farmers and the poor; that does not stop manufacturing and industrial growth; that does not compensate farmers for parting with their land at the current rates laid out by the recent land acquisition Bill but compensates them "fairly". While he criticises successive governments for taking the middle path and not taking tough decisions, the solutions

Many panic buttons to press

A universal basic income as an anchor for the 21st century social-protection system of India is desirable, whether as an additional social protection policy or a substitute for other schemes

How cash transfers can work

As America's longest war draws to a close, journalists and diplomats, spooks and soldiers keep turning out books attempting to explain what was lost and won over the last 14 years in Afghanistan. While none so far have synthesised the disparate worlds of American civilian policy, military action and Afghan realities, the latest entry, 88 Days to Kandahar: A CIA Diary, by Robert L Grenier, adds another on-the-ground view of how the early events actually unfolded. Mr Grenier, who retired in 2006 after 27 years with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), was the station chief in Islamabad, Pakistan, from 1999 to 2002, with practical responsibility for Taliban-dominated ­areas of southern and eastern Afghanistan during the crucial early months of the war. The book's title refers to the period between September 11 and December 7, when an anti-Taliban tribal leader named Hamid Karzai made a perilous return to Afghanistan to rally Pashtun opposition to the Taliban, which culminated in their

How the CIA saved Karzai

The book is fascinating for its portrayal of a significant period in world history with a Punjabi princess-turned-activist as its protagonist

Book review: Sophia's choice

Wildlife 1

Wildlife 3

Wildlife 2

Valmik Thapar's book is a reminder of India's sumptuous wildlife wealth at a time when there is a steady dilution of conservation policies

Into the wild with Valmik Thapar

This is not really a book. It is a personal record room. Yet Green Signals is worth docking in your cupboard if you are trying to figure out how the suave, intelligent and light-footed Rajya Sabha Member of Parliament Jairam Ramesh occupied one of the thorniest chairs in the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) Cabinet and developed in the process a high profile both for himself and for the ministry he supervised - environment.To refresh memories: Mr Ramesh was the minister of state with independent charge of the environment ministry for about 25 months. Several of his Cabinet and party colleagues believed he was too independent. UPA Prime Minister Manmohan Singh kicked him out and up - to become the Cabinet minister for rural development.Mr Ramesh's book doesn't talk of this or any of the other juicy bits about his tenure. He says the book only documents what is in the written record. But, really, it's only a hasty compilation of what Mr Ramesh wrote as environment minister. He appears t

The making of an enviro-politician

Book News: Check out for latest book news, reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

Books News: Latest Book, Book Reviews, Book Features, Book Launches | Business Standard

Check out for latest book reviews, book launches and more on Business Standard. Explore now for new books reviews along with books writers and novel reviews and more.

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